And Then There Was Light [and Fluffy Cake At Last]

I feel the need to not only knock but drum on wood as I write the following, but I’m hopefully over the worst of this smack-me-down-and-around cold. I have decided that cigarette smoke is my favourite smell in the world, but I have also learnt that healing is apparently a lot of work for the body and that, when such healing is taking place, one tends to become exhausted after a mere 4-5 hours of sightseeing.

Still, I’m feeling happier, and have managed to visit some wonderful places here in Berlin, so all is on the up and up (knock-drum-drummy-knock-knock).

To celebrate the fact that I can actually taste my peanut butter again, I finally bought myself a slice of kuchen, though sadly I passed on the “und kaffee” part. (Sleep is hard enough to come by as it is.)

And now I can't find the little slip of paper on which I wrote the German name for this.

I actually asked the lovely German fellow at the train information desk what his favourite kind of cake was*, and while he said he didn’t like sweet things, he said I had to have cheesecake. This put me in a quandary, as cheesecake is a weak spot of mine and yet I did not feel it constituted quite the quintessential German cake experience I was after.

Therefore I went against my heart and the heart of the travel agent, and opted for a Strawberry Cake with Buttermilk Cream:

Doesn't a cream-filled cake just scream "good choice" for a lactose-intolerant girl barely out of the ill-woods?

I had to have a bit of a giggle upon taking my first nibble of this. See, as soon as I tasted it I remembered that I actually don’t like cake very much, that strawberries are one of my least favourite fruits (particularly when in squidgy gelatinous form), and that something that’s just generically sweet with no counterpoint flavour is never going to win my heart.

But you know what? None of that mattered. It was light, it was fluffy, there was a faintly perceptible tang in the cream when I ate it on its own, it didn’t hurt my throat and, even though I was (and am) exhausted, I was finally eating cake in Germany.

Are you critiquing the classiness of this being eaten out of its take-away box? You haven't even seen the plastic fork I ate it with. I'm in a hostel, people. Let it go.

Still, tomorrow I’m getting the cheesecake.

*I hope he didn’t think I was trying some sort of crazy Australian pick-up line on him… You know, such as “You like sachertorte? I’ll be the apricot jam between your sponge” or “I’ll whip your cream” or something. What, you’re telling me normal tourists don’t ask about sugary delights on a regular basis? Lies! Filth and lies!

God, I’m only recovering from working 6 days straight over the weekend, with very little sleep during our latest heatwave, let alone being sick (thank god!) and the thought of 4-5 hours sightseeing makes me want to cry. You need cake, for sure. Cake AND cheesecake at the same time (how big was that plastic fork?).

KUCHEN! Yum! Are you going to Austria at all? You must have apfelstrudel if you visit there (though you can get good afpelstrudel in Germany and/or Switzerland too). And speaking of, Sacher torte in Austria really is a must :]

I went to Salzburg, and it was quaint and lovely and charming, but I think Vienna’s the place to go. Art, history, music, food, architecture, Freud…it’s got it all :] It was one of the most pleasant surprises of my trip.
Alas, I only stopped for ten minutes in Belgium, just long enough to buy a box of chocolates at a service station! 😛